Climate change is a global phenomenon that requires a global response. The Catholic University of America and the University of Miami are developing a knowledge-hub for solutions, strategies, and security mechanisms related to permanent neutrality and neutralization to suspend regional conflicts and allow each country to focus on all aspects of domestic and foreign policy making from security to trade, development of global health; food security to energy. Based on multilateral and bilateral relations a collective capacity will be able to respond to these challenges. This Center will produce a series of workshops and reports on the challenges permanent neutrality overcomes to address the impact of climate change with recommendations for policymakers worldwide to address public goods and the security of the international world order through cooperation based on global governance.
Currently, there are dozens of grand-strategic developments, including a changed energy security environment with the collapse of global oil markets and US energy self-sufficiency through shale oil and gas production, bringing about a (novel) awareness for the over-arching threat of climate change to these industries and the environment. What all this boils down to is that the Post-WWII Order is ending, and what is coming next is going to be inherently globally less stable due to existential causes for climate change. The effects of loss of sea ice, accelerated sea-level rise, and more intense heat waves will extend into countless social, political, and economic upheavals. The cause and effect of climate change and conflict will become more relevant as the debate rages on about the concept of climate change as a ‘threat multiplier.’ Appreciating the role of climate change related to international security is vital for understanding the local costs it will have on all people. The need to understand the links between the mechanisms at work between climate change, armed conflicts, and international security leads to the concept of neutrality and neutralization to suspend hostilities to focus on the threat multipliers threatening all people regardless of their geopolitical differences. While countries have shown a willingness to put aside their differences during times of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, neutrality will build upon this sentiment, especially as the severity of natural disasters increases because of climate change.
As the world is racing towards a future of multi-polarity, regional economic and military heavyweights will compete for influence in their respective ‘spheres of interest,’ not unlike the European balance of power of the nineteenth century. In this context, the primordial question will be how to stabilize that system while avoiding the cataclysm of war that, in the past, proved to be the only means to settle issues of power. The threat of stumbling into the unknown risks of climate warming with potentially a global war without intention but with necessity, due to the logic of the system that has been built. To avoid the threat, not only is a new foundation needed for global security but an architecture overall that structures the game - Permanent Neutrality.
This workshop proposes to suspend conflicts by re-thinking an age-old institution: Neutrality. The entire concept lay dormant for the past decades. Still, it is well defined and well-studied, ready for immediate deployment, while also intuitive and malleable enough to adapt to the needs of the twenty-first century. Back in the nineteenth century, when Neutrality was elevated from a security strategy to a norm of International Law to be known as ‘permanent neutrality,’ the world has seen its first (and last) global multi-polar security system. It is known as the "Concert of Europe," and featured at its core the idea of a balance of power, and the codification of state conduct. For this system to work, Neutrality was not only a feature but a fundamental premise of the game. In a nutshell: to keep a multi-polar system with different centers of power economically prosperous and militarily secure, you need neutral trading partners that also function as buffer zones between large rivals; Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden but even the UK and the US served this purpose—in one way or the other—until WWI.
Today the US is slowly shifting its engagement in global affairs with neutrality as a statecraft once again becoming relevant to our time. Neutral security corridors of neighboring states between NATO and Russia, a belt of countries in East Asia, and the China Seas become permanently neutral, or countries in the Middle East voluntarily neutralize themselves act as buffer zones with the effect of reducing tension between rivaling great powers as trade can continue. The commitments made to transform the pockets of conflict into mutually important geographical stable areas based on a set of rules allow elites of different countries to focus on the social and economic impact of climate change and potential prosperity. The effects of climate change to respect national boundaries and their plans and responses must be coordinated on a regional basis. Most importantly, the logic of a global security system revolving around the pillars of neutrality, controlling climate change, and halting conflicts can work because they serve the self-interest of the nations involved—the necessary premise for the stability of any system. Although the Swiss were neutralized by outside forces in 1815, they would fight to the death to defend their neutrality, which has become the cornerstone of their self-image and foreign policy. At the same time, they (and other neutrals) have been actively contributing humanitarian relief, good offices, and diplomatic services to the world at large because it was in their own best interest to reduce hostile tensions among countries.
